The Sacred Band of Thebes and Alcibiades’ Exemplum (Plutarch, Pel. 18-19 and Alc. 7.3-6)

• Author(s): Rodrigues, Nuno Simões
• Date: 2022
• Persistent ID: http://hdl.handle.net/10451/54202
• Origin: Repositório da Universidade de Lisboa
• Subject(s): Alcibiades; Sacred Band of Thebes; Greek pederasty; Greek homosexuality
• Document Type: Journal article
• Language: English
• Contributor(s): Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto da ULisboa

Description

This essay aims to contextualize Alcibiades exemplum as Socrates lover, as referred by Plu. Pel. 18-19 and Alc. 7.3-6, within Greek sources references to the Sacred Band of Thebes. Alcibiades becomes then evidence of how in Athens not only the so-called ‘pederastic model’ was in practice, but also what we may call the ‘military model’. Therefore, regarding homoeroticism and same-sex male sexuality, when compared with other regions in Ancient Greece, Athens seems not to have been an exception.